Hitt: Tech fields critical, but costly

January 18, 2012|By Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel

Florida lawmakers continued their "collegial discussion" on higher education today by questioning UCF President John Hitt and others on a range of topics, especially the need to focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Hitt said University of Central Florida attracts a lot of students interested in STEM fields, with enrollment in UCF's college of engineering and computer science now growing about 10 percent a year.

But Hitt said STEM programs are expensive and a push to get more students into that pipeline is "probably going to require some additional appropriations" from the state.

Also, the state needs to be mindful of its own demand for these expensive-to-educate graduates. "You don't want to just be producing them so they can go to North Carolina or Georgia or California," he said.

Hitt was the first of six university presidents scheduled to speak to the Florida House's education committee today. The committee heard from two others last week and plans to hear from the remaining three in coming days.

Speaker Dean Cannon called for the discussions during the opening day of the legislative session, saying Florida needed to reform its higher-education system that he said had "no clear mission" and was "aggressively racing to the middle."

Gov. Rick Scott last year called for reform, too, blasting state universities for not doing enough, in his view, to graduate students prepared for today's job market. He said he was particularly interested in seeing more students finish college with degrees in STEM fields.

Hitt said he supported the suggestion of encouraging STEM enrollment by making Bright Futures scholarships bigger for those pursuing STEM degrees.

But he acknowledged that students who opt for STEM classes because those are what everyone is touting, and not because they fit with their real talents and interests, "probably won't stay with it."